上市公司股东网络与财务风险——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

Listed Companies’Shareholder Network and Financial Risk:Empirical Evidence of Listed Companies in China

上市公司由于共同股东关系形成复杂网络。上市公司股东网络对于财务风险存在两个方面的影响,一方面通过股东联结产生财务救助,另一方面通过股东联结进行财务掏空。这两个方面的作用,与区域内的经济环境、政治环境等存在密切关联。基于2010至2019年上市公司大股东信息,构建全国及东部、中部、西部和东北四个区域的A股上市公司的股东网络,计算网络的网络特征,深度分析上市公司之间的财务风险传导。结果表明,经济发达的东部和中部地区,上市公司股东网络节点的度对Z值的影响显著为正,一家上市公司与其他上市公司共同大股东越多,它的财务风险越小。如果某公司发生财务危机,通过共同大股东联系的公司对其有救助意向,对区域性系统性金融风险的发生起到抑制作用。

China’s economic development has been significantly regionalized,with the formation of regional economic characteristics of eastern development,western expansion,mid-China rise,and northeast revitalization.The regionalization of economic development has also expedited the regional integration process of financial development.As the outstanding representatives of regional economy,listed companies play an important role in regional economic development on the one hand,and are deeply affected by the factors such as regional economic environment,capital,administration and culture on the other hand.More generally,with the increasingly extensive cooperation and exchanges of listed companies in the region,a complex network has been formed,accelerating the coordinated development of regional economy.However,when listed companies in the complex network are hit by risks,it is likely that these risks will spread through the path of the complex network,resulting in greater regional risks.Listed companies in a region form a complex network due to the common major shareholder relationships.There are two possible effects of the shareholder network on the financial risk of listed companies.On the one hand,financial assistance will work through the shareholders’linkage.On the other hand,it may lead to financial tunneling via the shareholders’linkage.Both of the two ways are closely related to the economic and political environment in a region.Therefore,it is of great significance to analyze the listed companies’shareholder network in a specific region to explore their financial risks.Based on the information of major shareholders of listed companies from 2010 to 2019,this paper constructs A-share listed companies’shareholder networks in the whole country and in the four regions,namely,the east,the middle,the west and the northeast respectively.We calculate the network characteristics,and deeply analyze the risk transmission and characteristics among listed companies.In the first part,this paper clarifies the impact of the network between enterprises on their financial risk based on previous researches on complex financial network.Enterprises seek to conduct related party transactions in order to accelerate capital accumulation and capital flow.If two listed companies have common shareholders,they will have the incentive to participate in related party transactions,which will generate a huge effect on the financial risk of listed companies through assistance or tunneling.This paper aims to conduct a theoretical and empirical research on complex network from the perspective of enterprise risk,analyze the phenomenon of related party transactions between enterprises from a new perspective,and interpret the mechanism of large-scale risk contagion,thus providing intellectual support for local economic governance.In the second part,this paper establishes the listed companies’shareholder network by the connection of common major shareholders,calculates the degree centrality,in-between centrality,proximity centrality and eigenvector centrality of the network nodes,and discusses the correlation coefficient among these centralities,so as to identify the important nodes of the listed companies’shareholder network.Then,the statistical variables such as the average shortest distance and clustering coefficient of the network are analyzed to find the possible contagion path of financial risk of listed companies.Finally,the topological structure and robustness of the network are investigated with the result that the network is stable.In the third part,the paper empirically analyzes the impact of the degrees of listed companies’shareholder network nodes on their financial risks.The results show that the degrees of listed companies’shareholder network nodes in the eastern and central developed regions have a significant positive effect on the Z value,indicating that the more common major shareholders a listed company shares with other listed companies,the smaller its financial risk is.If a financial crisis occurs in a company,other companies which connect the company by common major shareholders have the intention to rescue it,which can inhibit the occurrence of regional systemic financial risk.However,the degrees of listed companies’shareholder network nodes have an opposite effect on the Z value in less developed regions.